page_title: Arden University
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Arden University / History
caption_attribution_description: English: LSBF Sceptre Court Campus
context_page_description: Arden University is a private, for-profit teaching university in the United Kingdom. It offers a variety of undergraduate and post-graduate programmes with both blended and online distance learning delivery options. Its head office is in Coventry with study centres in Birmingham, Manchester, and London. Originally established as Resource Development International in 1990, it was later bought by Capella Education and awarded university status by the British government in 2015. Since August 2016 it has been owned by Global University Systems.
context_section_description: Resource Development International (RDI), the forerunner of Arden University, was established in 1990 by the Coventry-based entrepreneur John Holden. RDI originally provided distance learning programmes for commercial and industrial clients and established several subsidiary operations in the US, Europe, Africa, and the Far East. By 2010, it had closed most of its foreign subsidiaries and had expanded to include distance learning degrees validated by several UK universities. Its motto was "Learning without Boundaries". In 2011, Holden sold RDI and its remaining subsidiaries to the US-based Capella Education and went on to develop an online business school based in Coventry.
  RDI was granted taught degree awarding powers in April 2014 and the following year was awarded university status. It relaunched as Arden University in August 2015 with Philip Hallam, formerly the CEO of RDI, as its founding Vice-Chancellor and CEO. Arden was the first distance learning university to launch in the UK since the founding of the Open University in 1969 and the third of three for-profit universities created under the Conservative government's drive to increase competition in the UK university sector. The previous two were the University of Law in 2012 and BPP University in 2013.
  Capella Education had originally bought RDI as part of its strategy to accelerate the company's expansion into the international market. However, the strategy did not come to fruition, and Capella put Arden University and its remaining subsidiaries up for sale in February 2016. Sunderland University, which validated some of RDI's degrees bought the Resource Development International Hong Kong subsidiary from Arden University in July 2016. In August of that year Arden University itself was sold  to the Netherlands-based company Global University Systems (GUS) for £15 million. GUS's other UK holdings include the University of Law, St Patrick's College, London and the London School of Business and Finance.
  From January 2016, the previous externally validated degree programmes under RDI were gradually phased out and replaced by Arden's own degree programmes. In November 2017 Arden University had an enrollment of 5,700 students, of whom 2,500 were enrolled in the university's own programmes. Approximately 44% of its students were based outside the UK. In 2019 Carl Lygo succeeded Philip Hallam as Vice-Chancellor and CEO of the university.
caption: Sceptre Court, the site of Arden's Tower Hill study centre
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